Two's Complement

Matt and Ben discuss the kinds of things modern CPUs do behind the scenes. Branch prediction, caching, speculation, out-of-order processing, hyper-threading, register renaming... Lots of things most people don't need to know. Matt gets overly excited, and Ben channels Larry King to try and keep him on track.

The podcast discusses the benefits of using boring tools like databases for automation and local development. They also emphasize the importance of automation in software projects, the consequences of not auto pushing, and the value of avoiding database dependency in software projects.

Matt and Ben discuss their favorite *nix command line tools, and make various movie references while doing so. Included in this episode are references to both Sergio Leone and gunzip, although the two are surprisingly unrelated. Matt recalls using System Tap to discover latency in a trading system. Ben explains a method for writing Wireshark plugins that sparks joy.

Matt and Ben compare monorepo vs multi-repo layouts, explain Conways Law, talk about what a 'team' is, and what Visual Source Safe isn't. Ben defines how big a service should be. Matt recalls a brief interlude with Clojure.

Join our hosts as they talk about hobby hardware projects, past and present. Matt explains how he's building a digital picture frame out of a Raspberry Pi Pico and E-Ink display. Ben talks about building a Halloween candy dispenser using devices both serial and cereal. Matt and Ben discover they both liked MP3s in the early 00's.

Ben and Matt talk about builds and build systems, mostly in C++. Matt talks about lots of different ways to speed up builds for C++, and is very helpful. Ben questions whether you want a build that never fails, which is moderately helpful.

Matt and Ben join an argument on the Internet, which is always a productive and rewarding use of one's time. They discuss the SOLID principles from two different perspectives, and judge them. Listen in for the verdict. Then, Ben ponders how programmers learn, and whether sailors are happy. Matt gets a new puppy.

Ben and Matt stop talking about testing, and everyone is relieved. Matt describes the process for reverse engineering microchips by stripping off layers of silicon to look at the transistors with a microscope. With this forbidden knowledge, he explains how to defeat the copy protection on a childhood video game. Ben pretends like he understands.

Ben and Matt trick another live human being into joining them on the podcast. Clare Macrae joins to talk about her work with approval testing, her experiences dealing with legacy Fortran and C++ code, and an upcoming Webinar she's doing on refactoring-to-testability using CLion.

Matt and Ben discuss whether the city of Portland exists, and decide they don't care. Ben argues that you should test your code manually. Matt talks about when government regulators made him build an observable system, and how great it was. Really, it was great!